Patfall

Patfall (1.9 AU orbit) is another Class D rocky planetoid, one-fifth the size of Zemlejos.  With 0.22G, no atmosphere and a surface temperature averaging -130°C, it is already unwelcoming.  To make matters worse, its extremely long day and year (1233 of its 42 Standard Hour long days) and its unusually high axial tilt combine to offer long winters where temperatures plummet to -200°C.

 

Devoid of resources, the planet attracts those for whom it represents a refuge - pirates, criminals with bounties on their heads that very few will come to collect, or hermits seeking solitude.  One particularly unusual feature of Patfall is the Oracle, a group of mystics that read omens in the The Threads' many comets.  Their soothsaying is surprisingly popular, and exerts unexpected political influence throughout the solar system.

 

The Temple of the Oracle

Rising starkly against Patfall’s jagged, frozen horizon is the Voice, the sprawling temple complex of the Oracle. The structure is an austere blend of ancient design motifs and practical engineering meant to withstand the planetoid’s brutal cold and volatile seasons.  Its foundations are scavenged from old orbital wreckage, the bygone relics of some forgotten battle during the first decades of colonisation.

At the heart of the temple is the Astrarium, a massive domed chamber filled with holographic starfields and real-time telemetry from The Threads.

 

Consultation with the Oracle is an arcane, ritualized process. After asking their question, pilgrims must first present an Offering of Obscurity—something of deeply personal, often secret, significance. This offering is placed into the Well of Disclosures, a fracture carved deep into the bowels of Patfall, said to have no bottom.  No rumour has ever circulated of disclosure of such objects, suggesting the offering is truly lost forever.

Once accepted, the seeker undergoes the Nights of Quiet, a vigil in sensory deprivation chambers beneath the complex.  There is no limit to the length of this immersion; the length of a person's trial is correlated to the prestige of the priest who will interpret his omen.

Finally, they are granted an audience with a Threadcaller, who interpret the meanings that the criss-cross of comets offers, and offer an answer to the question.  It is always cryptic, which of course provides critics of these "superstitions" with plenty of ammunition and material for mockery.

 

At the end of every Thread Cycle, that is, the Patfall year, the High Seen Oracle speaks publicly.  He or she provides a long series of spontaneous predictions.  Detractors claim that the High Seen is corrupt, and utters predictions that are convenient to whatever organisations or individuals currently have him or her under the thumb.

It has to be said that most High Oracles, who must abdicate after five cycles, quickly find positions of considerable influence and power in the solar system, which only increases suspicion.

 

The reputation of the priesthood is however built on a series of oracles - be they spontaneous or answers to seekers' questions - that seem to demonstrate its ability to predict major events in the solar system.  Among the best known are :

 

“The Dead Will Pilot Steel Through the Widow's Belt”

Fulfilled: A derelict AI-controlled mining rig, assumed lost and crewless, reactivated autonomously and crossed the dangerous asteroid field known as the Widow’s Belt, delivering critical supplies to a marooned colony.  The Oracle's foretelling of this event helped rebuild the Human-AI alliance that had begun to fail due to corporate mismanagement.

 

“Three Thrones Will Burn, and the Smoke Will Smell of Salt”

Fulfilled: The habitats of three corporate executive —nicknamed “the thrones” both for their opulence and for the never before seen influence of their owners—were destroyed in three separate but simultaneous systems failure.  Each of the executives had gone to bed early after complaining of a headache associated with a "smell of salt".  It is well known that one ardent follower of the Oracle had recalled the oracle the second his master complained, and tried to warn his employer of the grave danger...to no avail.

 

“Beneath Iron Bones, the City Sleeps in Fear of Its Own Dreaming”

Fulfilled: In the underground mining sub-colony Delath Prime, on 51-Pegasus, reports emerged of mass hallucinations and synchronized sleep paralysis incidents. The story goes that the mine's ruling board arrogantly refused popular advice to consult the Oracle, until the paralysis of mining operations left them desperate. The Oracle punished them by refusing to answer the question as to the cause of this evil, until a denizen of Delath Prime passed fourteen Nights of Quiet as penitence.  Many failed until a young miner from a dirt-poor family succeeded the trial, received the answer, and died shortly afterwards of sleep deprivation, as a martyr.

The answer allowed the inhabitants to unearth a long-buried experimental neuro-wave transmitter that had begun reactivating intermittently—projecting dream-patterns across the colony.

 

“She Will Arrive Without a Name, and Leave With a Message”

Fulfilled: A mysterious refugee with amnesia and no records arrived on Hessk Station, on a ship inbound from Unity. She helped avert a massive reactor overload, then vanished. It was not until a decade later that she was recognised amongst the priestesses of the Oracle, taking the natural path for a benevolent saviour of mankind.

 

The Oracle's aura is also linked to its currently unfulfilled prophecies, whose dramatic undertones fuel speculation, paranoia and fascination.  Much debate and fear surrounds them, and even those who do not believe in the existence of Fate, admit to worrying about some of these prophecies.  The most famous utterance is "The Black Flower will bloom, where Light dares not to go".

Critics have pointed out that it has been around for over a century now, and is vague enough that it could apply to any number of metaphorical events.  The faithful state, and on this point at least have the backing of key academic figures, that the Oracle's prophecies are never purely metaphorical.  The Black Flower will almost certainly have that colour and form.  The hypothesis of a rare cosmic phenomenon such as a wormhole, or even the birth within the confines of the system of a black hole, are amongst the results that are clear favourites among bookmakers.  Since, yes, you can actually bet on what the Oracle's utterances actually mean !

 

Marek Vex, the Ice Jackal

Patfall is also home to some infamous characters, among whom are those whose legend surpasses - or seems to surpass - reality.  An example of these is Marek Vex, of whom there has incidentally been no confirmed sighting for around a decade, and who more than one corporation has declared dead.  These are a few of the deeds credited to him.

According to the Stelladyne Shipping Consortium, Marek Vex once posed as a structural engineer aboard the Lucent Horizon, a long-range mineral convoy bound for Zemlejos Major. During a routine maintenance window, Vex is alleged to have overridden containment protocols, venting one-third of the crew into vacuum and rerouting the ship’s cargo—a full payload of processed malasite-B—to an unregistered drop in the asteroid field known as The Widow's Belt.

The act was calculated, brutal, and left 32 confirmed dead. Corporate investigators consider it cold-blooded piracy, and Vex carries a 3.7 million-credit bounty, dead or alive.

 

 

During the Arden Financial Riots on 51 Pegasus, an unknown party breached the off-ledger data fortress known as the Gilded Registry—a private server cluster belonging to a consortium of particularly ruthless corporations. Overnight, 12,000 debt profiles vanished. The affected never of course stepped forward, but they were all miners and their family members, many of whom had been working under inescapable, multi-generational debt.

Although never officially confirmed, multiple data-forensics specialists found the attack signature matched an old pirate code structure known as “Cold Logic”—a technique that Marek Vex was known to have used in several of his operations.

The corporations called it data terrorism.
The workers called it deliverance.
The bounty on Vex rose another half-million credits.

 

According to popular legend, Vex has only been captured once.  He was brought in by bounty hunters and delivered to a specially formed Unity task force, whereupon he was cryo-executed in public by flash-freeze protocol. According to the tale, during body processing, Vex’s cryogenic systems were rigged—he had dropped his core temperature and neural signals to mimic death.

When the techs opened the containment casket, he stood up, exhaled vapor like a ghost, and walked calmly out into the storm while alarms blared.

Highly unlikely. Physiologically improbable. But don’t tell that to the criminal circles throughout the system — they toast to it like gospel.

 

The Solar Chord Pulse

Naturally, amateur observers and Oracle groupies across the solar system are already matching up the effects of the EM pulses to various so-far unrealised prophecies.  None have yet dared to voice their greatest fear : that the Black Flower has bloomed at last.

It is rumoured that the High Oracle may be planning on breaking centuries of tradition, to speak prophecy before the usual five cycles are up.

As for the various unsavoury elements that have made Patfall their refuge...well, it's feeding time !  With the astounding swiftness that characterises criminal networks, those that have operational vessels have absorbed those that don't, and there are shiploads of space-faring buccaneers blasting off to look for rich pickings.  On the other hand, guys and gals with major bounties on their heads are suddenly bobbing back to the surface for the culling, so they are not the only sharks circling.